


A Chronic Condition

by apolesen



Category: Star Trek - Various Authors, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Book: Enigma Tales (Star Trek), Late Night Conversations, M/M, Polyamory, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-29 03:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20956061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolesen/pseuds/apolesen
Summary: After finally going to see Bashir, Garak tries to make sense of his own feelings and Parmak's.





	A Chronic Condition

When Garak left the room overlooking the Capital, it was late evening. The strain of the last week’s events had caught up with him. All he wanted now was to sleep. He made his way to the bedroom. Just at the door, he paused, noticing a soft light from under the door. He stepped inside. 

The room was in darkness but for the beside lamp. Parmak was in bed, leaning back against the head-board. When Garak stepped inside, he looked up from his book. 

‘Hello.’

Garak stopped, startled. It had only been a few hours since last he saw Parmak, but it felt like months.

‘How is he?’ he asked. 

‘I’d have thought you’d know that better than me.’ Garak sat down to take his shoes off. 

‘I didn’t mean physically,’ Parmak said, fully aware that he had understood that. ‘Did you talk to him?’ 

‘I read to him.’ 

‘That enigma tale? Poor man.’ Parmak smiled a little and went back to his reading. Garak hung up the suit and put on his nightshirt. He did not feel quite present, like he had left part of himself in that sick-room, several floors above them. It was like the feeling when one heard a beautiful piece of music and did not want to break the silence following it, as that would bring one back to the mundane world. He rounded the bed to his side and paused. Was this mundane? Why was part of his mind still there, with a man who could not even answer him? 

‘Kelas.’ 

Parmak looked up. 

‘Yes?’ 

Garak sat down on the side of the bed, facing him. He regretted speaking - it would have been so easy just to leave it be - but he had done that ever since their guest had arrived. It was not fair to expect Parmak to trust him when he gave him no reason to. 

‘I’m sorry I was absent all evening.’ 

Parmak smiled. 

‘You were busy. It’s alright.’ 

Garak had meant to craft the question carefully, but, sick of the intricacies of politics and the memories of interrogation, it came out blunt and vague instead. 

‘What do you think of him?’ 

Parmak’s eye-ridges squeezed together in confusion. 

‘I beg your pardon?’ 

‘Bashir,’ Garak clarified. ‘What do you think of him?’ 

Parmak drew a deep breath, but still looked rather lost. 

‘I don’t really have anything to base an opinion on. I’ve never met him properly.’ 

‘I mean, not your impression of him as he is now. But… from what I have told you.’ 

‘He seems to have been a very talented young man. Seems to _be_,’ he said, correcting himself. 

‘That’s also an impression. Not an opinion.’ 

Parmak put his book on the bedside. 

‘Elim, I really don’t know what it is you want me to say.’ 

Garak considered his words. 

‘Do you dislike him?’ 

Again, Parmak frowned. 

‘Not at all,’ he said, surprised and, Garak thought, insulted. ‘Why ever would I? Because he was important to you? Because you were with him and not with me? Is that what you’re asking me?’ 

Garak was silent for a long moment. 

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think it is.’ 

Parmak took a deep breath and let it go slowly. 

‘I don’t dislike him,’ he said. ‘I have no reason to. I feel grateful that he helped you. I’ve read his notes, and I know he went beyond his duty. I owe him more than I can say. Cardassia owes him.’

‘He was not just my doctor. Any more than you are.’ 

‘I know that,’ Parmak said quickly. ‘You have made that clear, and I do not begrudge either of you what you had.’ He leaned forward a little to look Garak in the eye. ‘Or what you feel now, Elim.’ 

Garak sighed. 

‘How can you not?’ 

Parmak smiled a little. 

‘Love, my dear Elim, is a chronic condition. It doesn’t go away. I’m living proof of that.’ 

Garak marvelled that he could say that with a smile. Parmak had spent three years in the kind of place built to break a man’s spirit, and yet he had come out of it with his heart intact. 

‘I can’t fault you for loving him,’ Parmak said. ‘He was, and is, important to you. It is not surprising.’ 

This time, Garak’s breath came out in a short burst. 

‘How do you stand being like this?’ he asked, not hiding his annoyance. ‘Saintly like an old _vedek_.’ 

Parmak looked taken aback. 

‘Would you prefer it if I threw things and accused you of not loving me anymore?’ There was an edge in his voice that Garak had seldom heard. It made the words stick in his throat.

‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I want you to be honest.’ 

‘I’m not lying to you, Elim.’

‘I’m not saying you are.’ Despite his efforts, his frustration bled into his voice. 

‘Then what are you saying?’ Parmak asked sharply.

Garak paused and tried to collect himself. He needed to start at the beginning. 

‘I would not have survived my exile without Bashir. But I would not have survived the years after the Fire without you, Kelas. You had no reason to help me, and yet you did. You put aside everything that had happened and stood by me. You trusted me. Then when I was on Earth, you could have made a life for yourself, but you were here when I came back. And now…’ He looked around the master bedroom of the Castellan’s residence. ‘You’re still here. And I don’t understand it.’ 

‘Do you really need me to explain why that is?’ 

‘It’s not about why,’ Garak said. ‘But…’ He struggled to find the words. ‘You do so much. You pick me up and carry me on your back. I never carry you.’ 

‘That’s not true,’ Parmak said. ‘You listen when I need to talk.’ 

‘It’s not very often.’ He looked down at his hands. Time had changed them, but he could still see the marks from his previous lives. His right index fingers and thumb still had calluses from the long years sewing. The back of his left hand bore the scar from when an interrogation had gone wrong. Garak put his right hand over his left.

‘Please, Kelas,’ he said. ‘Don’t just tell me what you think I want to hear.’ Just for once, he wanted this not to be about his feelings, his problems. He could not help Julian, but he could help Kelas.

Parmak sighed. The fight had gone out of him. 

‘One’s first reaction is not necessarily the truest or best,’ he said. ‘In the beginning, when you would talk about Doctor Bashir, I would feel…’ He hesitated, looking for the words. ‘“Threatened” is not the right word. It was nothing so aggressive, or even aimed at him. It was rather…’ He made a vague gesture towards himself. ‘Feeling self-conscious. You had a lover on the other side of the Denorius belt – one less complicated, brighter, definitely more attractive.’ 

Garak opened his mouth to protest. Parmak silenced him with a raised hand. 

‘Let me finish,’ he said calmly. ‘I may have felt self-conscious, but that was beside the point. I knew that from the start. It was never about either of us. I knew you well enough to know, even then, that you would not leave Cardassia just for him, just as you would not stay just for me.’ 

‘You made it bearable,’ Garak said. ‘Without you, I would have died.’ 

‘Elim, I don’t _have _to be the reason you were here,’ Parmak said, no malice in his voice. ‘You were here for Cardassia and, maybe, for your soul. I stayed here for the same reasons.’ He looked solemn now, looking Garak straight in the eye. ‘Somehow, we healed each other. But I don’t think what you had with Doctor Bashir was the same. He healed you. Did you ever heal him?’ 

Garak thought back. He had tried to mould him, make him more mature and cynical. When that happened, it was not because of his actions but the war. He thought of all the times he could have helped – after his imprisonment by the Dominion, his exposure as an augment, the death of Jadzia Dax. Every time, he had pulled away, not daring to stay close. 

‘No,’ he admitted.

‘Then perhaps you owe him that,’ Parmak said. Garak looked up at him. His heart was in his throat. 

‘And you?’ he asked. 

‘You owe me nothing.’ It came out so quietly that Garak could not tell if it was tender or resigned. All he could see on Parmak’s face was weariness. He was still facing him, but he was not making eye-contact. Garak recalled the barely suppressed flinch that day Parmak had come to his office to confront him. 

He exhaled. There was an ache in his throat.

‘Are you leaving me?’ 

Parmak’s face strained at the effort to control the sudden sob.

‘No,’ he said emphatically. ‘Don’t you see, Elim? This is not a zero-sum game. Do you love me any less because you love him?’ 

‘No.’ It was not much more than a whisper. 

‘Exactly. What you have with me is not the same as what you had with Bashir. Perhaps there is a thrill there that we do not have, but your relationship with him is about what you both need. That has never been the case with the two of us. If it had just been about a need, we would have sought out other people. We chose to rebuild what we once had, even if it took a long time. It’s different, but it doesn’t make it less real.’ 

He reached out and cupped Garak’s cheek. Garak bowed his head. 

‘I do not deserve you, Kelas.’ 

Parmak let out a shaky breath. 

‘Please, Elim. Don’t. I can’t take it tonight.’ 

Garak drew back, just enough to break the contact. He had meant it, but when the words were spoken, they sounded demanding. Even when he tried to express his admiration for him, he added to the weight he bore. He wanted to apologise, but it would only require more of him. How exhausting it must be, to be another man’s conscience. 

‘Kelas… tell me what you want. In this moment.’ 

All the things he could think of himself seemed to just harm him more. He could make suggestions – did he want to be on his own? continue talking? seek distraction through sex? – but he could not gauge what was right. Parmak took off his glasses to rub his eyes. Even asking for this, Garak reflected, might have hurt him. 

‘I want to sleep,’ Parmak said. Then, realising he needed more: ‘I want you to stay here.’ 

Garak nodded and rose. He felt a reluctance when he rounded the bed, as if breaking contact might make Parmak change his mind. As soon as he had stood up, Parmak had rearranged his pillows and lain down. When Garak got under the covers, he edged towards him. Garak moved to meet him, pressing his chest to his back. He was about to speak, but Parmak whispered: 

‘Please don’t apologise.’ 

He did not. As he hugged him closer, Garak could feel the tremble of vulnerability in him. Perhaps this was part of his penance: to let that unpleasant guilt gnaw on him without the relief of apologising. They would talk more in the morning, or tomorrow evening, but for now, Garak had to be content with this. And it was enough. More than enough. 

Parmak’s body grew heavy against his. Garak kissed his shoulder gently. 

‘Sleep well, my love.’ 

Parmak hummed in response – maybe words that were not quite formed, maybe just an acknowledgement. He pressed his hand briefly. Then his grip loosened as sleep overtook him. Garak lay awake for a long time, listening to his measured breaths.


End file.
